| Stanza 2:
one
side of the urn shows a piper playing a pipe beneath the trees, and
then a bold lover chasing his girl. How is this picture on the urn
different from a real life story?
Stanza 3:
This
difference is what leads to the exclamations in stanza 3. What is the
effect of the repetition of the words "happy" and "for ever"? If the
speaker praises the "happiness" of the permanent music, love and youth
on the urn, why, then, does he switch immediately to "breathing human
passion" and its pains?
Stanza 4:
From
the questions asked here, obviously this side of the urn shows neither
the altar (the destination) nor the little town (the starting
point)--but the procession on their way to the alter. What is the
significance? Also, why does the speaker addresses the little town
which is not shown on the urn?
Compare stanza 4 with the previous two. What aspect
of the urn do they all show, but treat differently?
The poem as a whole
2. With the stories described on the urn in mind, we can then
try to understand the metaphors and names for the urn in the 1st and
last stanzas. Is there, however, a difference between metaphors in the
first stanza ("bride," "child," "historian") and the names in the last
("attic shape," "fair attitude" "cold Pastoral")? If so, why?
3. The last two lines may sound like a cliche and
then a repeated praise of the urn. But can they also be read
ironically? (Why does the urn
only know, and only need to
know, "Beauty is truth, and truth beauty)? Keep in
mind the contrast between the human world and the worlds shown on the
urn.
4. The poem is basically an apostrophe to an inanimate object. How does this rhetorical
device function in the poem? Does the poet apostrophize the
urn just to praise it? What does he get to
understand? The urn, and/or human beings' difference from it?
5.
Re-consider the development of the poem in terms of the poet's
attitudes. What stance, or attitude, does he take
in each stanza? Can we say that the poet "enter" the urn and
then leave it (or going through an empathic process)?
|
